On being unemployed

Sean Gillies — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 03:36:15 GMT

After writing about being laid off in April, I went almost five months without paid work. As I wrote in that post, I started with some severance. After that, I learned how to participate in Colorado's unemployment insurance benefits system. Just before reaching that program's limits, I was offered a position at Colorado State University, and I accepted. Colorado recorded 2,400 people hired in September 2026, and I was one of them.

Surprisingly, I found the job posting on the Larimer County Economic and Workforce Development Program's current job openings list, using "python" as a keyword. Not on LinkedIn. Not in my professional network. The algorithms were feeding me nothing but jobs at defense contractors with cringey names stolen from Tolkien, and my personal network was not hiring. I stumbled onto a local job on a local job board and nailed the interviews. It was not how I imagined that I would find a new position.

I've benefited from good luck. I'm lucky to have found the posting in a local listing. I'm lucky that the hiring team was open minded about an older and perhaps over-qualified applicant. I'm lucky that I have a nice list of accomplishments that are recent enough to be relevant and old enough to have been plausibly earned through actual interest and perseverance. I'm lucky to have friends who will answer the phone and attest to me being a decent person.

It's a tough time to be unemployed in the USA, which has uneven and often meager benefits, and is banking on magical AI/LLM solutions to all our problems. Hit me up if you're having trouble navigating Colorado's unemployment insurance system and have nowhere else to go for help.

Sean Gillies (Posts about hiring)

On being unemployed